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Total US debt (in dollars, not as a fraction of GDP, which is a horrible measure) increased every year through Clinton (and basically everyone else in modern hi
by swaits 15y ago
Total US debt (in dollars, not as a fraction of GDP, which is a horrible measure) increased every year through Clinton (and basically everyone else in modern history).
- eftpotrm 15y agoBy what logic is it horrible to measure debt based on ability to pay?
- swaits 15y agoBy the logic that we can pretend that debt went down, when it didn't?
- brown9-2 15y agoThe nominal value of the debt is not a good measure because it disregards the fact that the value of a single unit (the dollar) changes over time, and doesn't reflect the difficulty in paying it off (i.e. % of national GDP). It's also a bit of apples-and-oranges when you compare the nominal debt of one country with another without looking at the differences in GDP between the countries, i.e. the size of each country's economy.
- swaits 15y agoBecause we can increase GDP (via public spending, yay!) and make our debt situation look like it's improving. Look, nominal total debt may not be perfect either, but saying Clinton reduced debt is factually wrong. In every year, we spent more than we had. Debt increased. They all do it. The debt dollar is a horrible instrument that will not end well. We may be decades off, but it's gonna be ugly.
- DougBTX 15y agoIs it more useful to talk about "Total US debt" than "US government debt"? When I first read your comment, I thought you were making the point that the article was misleading because it was using a fraction of GDP as a measure, when it in fact the main feature graph is measured in trillions of dollars. To a lay reader like myself, it would easily lead to confusion if people talk about different numbers without making the distinction clear. Is there a well known relationship between government debt and private debt? Or is talking up Total US Debt just a distraction from the article, which talks about Government Debt?
- pessimizer 15y ago>Is there a well known relationship between government debt and private debt? Yes. "[...T]he difference between the government budget deficit and the trade deficit must equal the difference between private saving and investment[...]" http://internationalecon.com/Finance/Fch5/F5-9.php http://internationalecon.com/Finance/Fch5/F5-9.php Holding the trade deficit constant and lowering government debt implies a rise in private debt.
- babblefrog 15y agoHow the heck would you hold the trade deficit constant, and why would you even if you could?
- pessimizer 15y agoI wasn't recommending holding the trade deficit constant, I was isolating the relationship between public and private savings. And if I ever say "all other things being equal," I'm not actually recommending that all other things be made equal.
- _delirium 15y agoNominal debt seems like a pretty horrible measure. By that measure, Greece is much better off than the U.S., because its debt is a fraction of the size. Of course, it also has a smaller population and a smaller GDP--- exactly why it makes sense to report debt at least normalized by population, and probably, better, by GDP.
- sjh 15y agoThe nominal value of public debt is an unreliable measure. Ireland's national debt was €30bn in 1987 and €36bn in 2002. But in the same period it went from around 128% of GDP to 32% of GDP.